


A Quiet World

by nereidee (aurasama)



Series: Frictional October 2018 challenge [6]
Category: SOMA (Video Game)
Genre: Existential Angst, Flash Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 17:16:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16309373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurasama/pseuds/nereidee
Summary: Simon had never imagined a place more isolated or silent as the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, but he starts finding his resolve in that isolation as he searches for a way towards Theta.Written for the Frictional October challenge on Tumblr, based on the prompt 'water'.





	A Quiet World

When considering end of the world scenarios, Simon's mind had usually been filled with images of fire, crippling diseases, maybe radiation, but the landscape under the sea was nothing like that. He felt both weightless and incredibly heavy all at once; in the water he seemed to weight nothing at all, yet moving forwards was laborious. And nothing could have prepared him for how quiet the world down here was. He'd lived his entire adult life in the hustle and bustle of Toronto, and while you grew used to the fact that the city was never asleep around you, he had considered himself something of a quiet soul, someone who needed solitude at times. He had craved it sometimes, those moments when you got to be all alone, yet the silence here was so absolute that it was almost too much.  
  
He only vaguely wondered what the surface looked like right now; a feeling in his gut told him he was likely happier not knowing. The thought drifted away as he looked around, drinking in the sight opening around him.  
  
Simon thought he'd never felt more lonely before – an understandable feeling, given the circumstances – but the further he walked, the more firmly he felt that his isolation was not as complete as he'd believed at first. He may not have encountered any living humans so far, but there were signs of human life everywhere in this strange landscape. Even here, they seemed ingrained into everything. Sign posts, machinery, flickering lights that surely at one time had signalled pathways and distances to other stations. All these manmade structures looming in the distance. Despite their sorry state, he couldn't help feeling comforted by it. It felt a sign that something, no matter how insignificant, had survived of his species' long history, something that proved his kind had once been here.  
  
It made looking for the ARK feel more meaningful, he supposed.  
  
He stopped on top of a dune, the sand and soil softly crumbling beneath his soles. He could see the pathway stretching up ahead, something that looked like emergency lights glowing faintly through the ever-shifting layer of sand. Theta had to be there somewhere. His fingers tightened around the Omnitool and for a moment, he wished he could talk to Cath, just to hear another person's voice. The silence pressing against his, well, not-eardrums, seemed endless.  
  
“Wonder how Cath ended up working here in the first place,” Simon thought out loud, just to break the silence. Perhaps she had just been drawn to this place, being as withdrawn as she was; he could hardly think of a more isolated working environment, unless you were an astronaut.  
  
Now that the worst of the shock had began to wear off, though, he could see how beautiful it was. The light that reached the bottom of the sea was faint at best, but even so everything seemed dressed in muted hues of blue and green, the landscape undisturbed, unchanging. Whatever wildlife he'd seen hadn't bothered with him, his presence uninteresting to them, or perhaps their experience with human beings was so limited that they didn't understand to fear him. He hadn't known Cath for long enough to really feel like asking personal questions, but he made a mental note to bring up the subject eventually. Had she liked it here? Had she thought it was beautiful? Soothing, perhaps, to be away from the overpopulated surface and pollution?  
  
_I don't even know where she was from, come to think of it,_ Simon thought. _Not that it matters now. We're not from anywhere anymore._  
  
Just a pair of vagabonds, the two of them, rootless and with nothing to call a home. All they had left in this dying world were silence and water.


End file.
